I (pronoun)

I (pronoun)

"I" (IPAEng|aɪ) is the
first-person,
singular
personal pronoun (subject case) in Modern English. It is the person "you" are referring to when you are referring to yourself.

Usage

In orthography, this pronoun is comparable to proper nouns. In most writing "I" is always capitalised. This convention dates from around 1250, a little over a hundred years after the form "i" first developed from the earlier "ic". However, internet slang on comment sites frequently shows a lower-case "i".

The oblique cases of "I" are "me" (object) and "my" (possessive).A first person subjunctive can be used as a circumlocution, to avoid direct criticism in the second person.
* I wouldn't believe all I read. "You shouldn't believe all you read".
* I wouldn't do that [if I were you] . "You shouldn't do that"Compare:
* One wouldn't do that oneself.

Etymology

English "I" originates from Old English (OE) "ic". This transformation from "ic" to "i" had happened by about 1137 in Northern England. Capitalisation of the word began around 1250 to distinguish "I" as a distinct word. Writers of handwritten manuscripts began to use a capital "I" because the lower-case letter was hard to read and sometimes mistaken for part of the previous or succeeding word. This practice continued after the introduction of printing partly because it was already established and partly because it improved readability. "ic" in turn originated from the continuation of Proto-Germanic "ik", and "ek". "ek" was attested in the Elder Futhark inscriptions (in some cases notably showing the variant "eka"; see also ek erilaz). "ik" is assumed to have developed from the unstressed variant of "ek".

Germanic cognates are: Old Frisian "ik", Old Norse "ek" (Danish, Norwegian "jeg"), Old High German "ih" (German "") and Gothic "ik".

The Proto-Germanic root came, in turn, from the Proto Indo-European language (PIE). The reconstructed PIE pronoun is *"egō, egóm", with cognates including
Sanskrit "aham", Hittite "uk", Latin "ego", Greek _gr. ἐγώ "egō" and Old Slavonic "azъ".

The oblique forms are formed from a stem "*me-" (English "me"), the plural from "*wei-" (English "we"), the oblique plural from "*ns-" (English "us").

Tables

See also

* English grammar
* English personal pronouns
* Grammar
* Personal pronouns
* Pronouns
* Self


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